CHICAGO – Tom Allen spent a sizable portion of his offseason triaging the reasons behind his team’s failure to finish close games.

It has been a consistent, frustrating theme for IU football, one that predates Allen’s time in the Hoosiers’ head coach’s office. One of Allen’s major diagnoses: Experienced players who split time between offense or defense and special teams were playing too many snaps.

A tweak to college football’s redshirt rule could help ease that burden this year. And it could prove particularly useful for a program like Indiana.

Beginning this fall, programs may play their players in as many as four games, anywhere on the schedule, and still redshirt them, saving a year of eligibility. The games do not have to be pre-reported or run consecutively. Play four or fewer games this season and if, a player has a redshirt year to burn, he can save a season.

“I think it’s so good for the players,” Allen said Tuesday at Big Ten media day. “The way they approach it, they’re fired up. They realize that they’re going to have an opportunity to play.”

The new rule will be most relevant for freshmen, some of whom might have been stashed on scout teams for an entire season so as not to waste that year of eligibility for just a few snaps. It will also save others from being pressed into late-season duty for depth purposes, sacrificing an entire season for just a handful of games.

It introduces a new layer of evaluation for Allen and his staff during fall camp.

“It’s not going to probably be as clean as one guy plays four games in a row, then this guy plays four games in a row,” Allen said. “But you have to have a plan for who’s playing on special teams, and who’s playing on offense or defense…

“Some guys, they’re just going to have to play. We’re not planning on redshirting them at all. There’s a few of those guys. The ones that would have maybe redshirted, now we’ll have a chance to play them, when they’re ready to play.”

The benefit for every program is obvious: Young players can add valuable game time without losing a year of eligibility.

If IU can’t rely on raw talent, especially among its less-experienced players, it must be more clever in development. That adds significant weight to the impact of the new redshirt rule, if it’s handled right.

Limited playing time could still accelerate that development in young players, and add needed depth, all while preserving eligibility.

As Allen searches for reliable relief from the departure of the players lost to graduation — including stalwarts like Tony Fields, Chase Dutra, Rashard Fant and Tegray Scales — he can now alleviate the snap load on the Hoosiers he’ll turn to in their stead.

“We were getting (snap totals) in the 80s for guys,” Allen said. “More than that for some. It’s just too many. I’m not trying to state anything other than the facts. The facts were, we had too many guys playing too many snaps, especially on defense last year. Some of those guys were also on special teams.”

“At a position like that, those are season-defining situations that could occur,” he said. “You don’t want to burn a guy’s opportunity and then get late in the year, and you’ve got nothing left.”

For the rest of Indiana’s freshmen, there’s now a new path to playing time in their first year of college. For Allen and his staff, the newfound flexibility could be invaluable, both short- and long-term.

“I never want a guy coming in saying, ‘Hey, I want to redshirt,’ but they can see the writing on the wall as things unfold throughout fall camp,” Allen said. “Now, they’re gonna stay engaged, which is huge for us. A guy may be on the scout team. That doesn’t mean he’s going to stay there the rest of the year.”